So...intel released two new processors lately, the core ultra 250k and core ultra 270k. Basically, these are refreshes of the core ultra 245k and 265k. And on paper, they are a bit better. The 250k and 270k have 4 more ecores than their predecessors and have better gaming performance. I guess what's really getting them attention is that the 250k is releasing for $199 and the 270k $299. I mean that's a good value. Too bad it's coming at a time where PC prices are going insane due to the RAM shortage, meaning that whatever gains you get are gonna be offset by higher prices elsewhere.
And...I guess that's the point. I'm a price/performance guy, and while these CPUs are a good value, they don't fundamentally shake up the market. People go on about how they have so much more productivity power than equivalent AMD CPUs like the 7600x/9600x or 7700x/9700x. However, this has been the case since like...alder lake. Intel added ecores which gave much more multicore oomph than AMD parts, and people still acted like the AMD parts were the best thing since sliced bread because "upgrade path."
At the same time, you gotta ask, who actually upgrades within the same socket regularly? Heck, I've only seen two CPU sockets in my lifetime where a full on CPU upgrade got you a huge performance jump, and that was LGA775 back in the day (intel core 2, think late 2000s), and the AM4 socket. And I guess people are glazing AM4's upgradeability, but there's a couple factors there that make it a special case. First of all, it had 4.5 generations of processors. That's almost unheard of. Normally you get 2-3, and they drop them. And normally if you buy the first one, the 3rd one isn't a huge deal. Think of going from a 1600x to a 3600x, that's basically all you can realistically expect from the same socket. But then AMD really hit hard out of the gate with the 5000 series, AND THEN followed it up with X3D. And I think that's also another thing that needs to be discussed here. AM4 was so special because it started out really weak vs intel, being down nearly 30-40% in single core performance in gaming at the beginning of its lifespan, while ending at basically alder lake levels of performance. You got 70% performance uplift per core going from a 1600x to a 5600x, And that went over double if you account for X3D processors. But again, AMD started out down, with an architecture full of design flaws and ended up with sharing the gaming crown with the 12900k, which HW unboxed recently revisited just today, and is part of the reason why I'm writing this.
Which brings me back to the whole 250k discussion. Yeah, $199 is a nice price tag for a 250k. BUT if you've been paying attention for the past 3 years now, you'll probably notice that $199 for a processor of the 250k's caliber, roughly, has been pretty common. Due to microcenter's $400 12900k deal I secured in 2023, I was able to buy that back then....for around $200 for the CPU. AND I got a mobo and RAM at reasonable prices. The same combo existed on microcenter's site until recently, but last I looked it was $549 and running up against arguably better deals. But I digress. It's not just that. It's that if you really wanted an intel CPU with comparable performance to an AMD non X3D processor for $200, they existed for years. You could find 12700ks and kfs for under $200 for a while. The 5700X3D was available for around $200 in early 2024. There were a lot of sales on 13600ks and 14600ks as well for around $230ish. And all things considered, while those deals drove up as those old intel CPUs are now out of production and their prices went up, the performance we're gaining with the 250k doesn't make it that much better.
I mean, on paper, we're talking something that's 20-30% better. That;s okay...after 2.5 years of owning this thing. And the CPU is the same price, and the other components were much cheaper. Heck with RAM, you're likely paying more than 20-30% more for similar performance. And if we're talking gaming, let's compare the HW unboxed links. The 250k review didn't compare the 12900k directly to the 250k but it did compare the 14600k, which performs similar. And if we go back to the 12900k review from today and add to those results, since we're all discussing the same games, the performance is very similar to the 14600k, meaning we're talking like a 7-10% performance jump overall at medium settings.
That's....not much. I mean, I guess compared to the 245k it's good, but the 245k was horrible, it was a REGRESSION compared to alder/raptor lake performance wise. So intel finally released their 2nd gen of arrow lake and finally got a tepid 10% gaming jump. I mean, congrats, but that doesn't mean much.
I almost feel like we're back in another version of the 2010s intel stagnation era, where we just grew at 10% performance each generation and that's about it. The biggest jumps were from DDR3-DDR4 with skylake, and likewise, the biggest jumps since alder lake and zen 3-4 was the transition to DDR5, we can see that just from how the 12900k performs there.
But again, that means that we've had like four generations of stagnation. And while I understand the 12900k was a high end i9 at the time, it never aged like one, raptor lake bumped it down to i5 status pretty quickly, and its value quickly followed suit. Was never worth it outside of microcenter deals, but again, given I got it for like $200, you seeing why I'd make the comparison here? Like yeah, it's a competent midrange intel CPU. But we've had midrange intel CPUs this powerful since around 2022 with the 13600k. And while I get that was $300 at the time, in 2023 and 2024, yeah, again, you can get stuff like that for $200 if you really shopped around.
Idk, I guess the 250k is kinda like another raptor lake like bump given the core counts going up, but they dont seem to help a whole lot in gaming and given the architecture is being held back by tons of latency in the way pre zen 3 ryzen was, ya know....i9 12900k -> 13600k -> 14600k -> 245k -> 250k....again, its feeling an awful lot like we're back in that 2011-2014 zone. And honestly, I just dont think this is much better than any deal you could get for $200 if you shopped around. And while people are going on about how much productivity it has vs AMD CPUs...AMD has been behind on that front since intel added ecores, and they're just falling further and further behind. The only reason it hasnt mattered is because 6 cores and 12 threads is all anyone has been needing since the transition to gen 9, and because people care more about upgrade path than intel CPUs literally giving you tons more processing power for the same money. So again, this isn't shaking up the market, it's literally just the status quo? What's the big deal?
Just my thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment